Workers’ Mail: Proud to Protest.

 

(source)

In Australia we’ve grown used to be endlessly lectured on how lucky we are for living in a liberal democracy. It’s “government of the people, by the people, for the people” this; “rule of law” that. Aussie pollies go around the world in a crusade against foreign autocrats.

It sounds good, right?

Worker’s Mail: a Friendly Reminder.

Clare O’Brien, writing for Working Life, the ACTU newsletter, remind us that we must check our payslips carefully:

As we ring in a new financial year, we welcome a very well-deserved pay increase for minimum wage workers. As of 1 July, those on minimum wage should expect a 5.2 per cent pay rise while those on awards will receive either a 4.2 per cent increase or an extra $40 per week (whichever of the two is highest).

Also coming into effect on 1 July is the removal of the $450 threshold for super contributions. Are you starting to receive super for the first time? It’s important you make the right choice for you about which super fund your employer starts contributing to. Here’s a good place to start your research.

Australian union members fought long and hard for these much-needed changes that Australian workers have truly earned!

(source)

Anthony Albanese: Conflict Fatigue? Collaboration? Consensus?

(source info up to 20:00 Monday 30th)

Ten days since the federal elections, the precise composition of the 47th Parliament is not yet certain: too close to call, two seats remain in doubt.

However, the Australian Labor Party did form a majority government after securing 76 seats in the 151-seat House of Representatives. Last week its federal Leader, Anthony Albanese, was sworn as Prime Minister.

The COALition suffered a devastating defeat: 17 seats lost, as far as I can tell, all of them Liberal Party of Australia so-called “moderates”: Josh Fraudenberg, Jason Falinsky and Tim Wilson, more prominently. The combined Liberal/National lower house fraction shrank to 57.

The Australian Greens gained three new seats. Six teal independents (all of them more ambitious than Labor on climate change) plus a former Liberal non-teal allegedly independent joined the three already seating independents.

Productivity.

The Tailor of Folk Suits. [A]

Productivity isn’t everything, but in the long run it is almost everything. A country’s ability to improve its standard of living over time depends almost entirely on its ability to raise its output per worker. – Paul Krugman.

It’s an election campaign and pollies are not debating productivity. Imagine that.

Well, they aren’t debating many things. For example, last year, by this time, all the talk was COVID. Today? Not a peep. More importantly, climate change is at best an afterthought.

 

But it’s productivity that the economically-minded Very Serious People, like Laura Tingle, have in mind as the most important thing ever:

The good news is that growth and employment are strong. The bad news is inflation and interest rates are rising and are going to keep rising and wages are only just starting to pick up. That brings us back to one of those issues we just aren’t talking about in this election.

Which is? Cut to Danielle Wood, CEO of the Grattan Institute:

If we’re serious about getting real wages growth for the longer term, we really need to be talking about productivity and that is actually something that’s been missing from this election campaign.

May Day, May Day! Wages Down! Wages Down!

(source)

In the last 23 years nominal wages growth in Australia peaked in the second half of 2008 (4.3%). Since then, with partial and short-lived recoveries, the general tendency has been to a fall. We seem to be in the midst of one such recovery: from a low of 1.4% in the second half of 2020 to 2.3% by the end of 2021. When will this recovery, very partial as it is, stop or how much ground will it regain remains to be seen.

Although not ideal, in the low-inflation environment prevalent in Australia for much of the time since September 2013 (when the incumbent COALition took power), federal policy-makers found little political pressure to lift wages: wage-earners may not have felt financially buoyant, but on average they could keep pace with the cost of living.

(source)

Environmentally-Conscious Worker’s Mail.

Kat Tu, from Act!onAid Australia writes

Today we took to the streets of Sydney to demand that Nike pay its workers!

We stood with the 1,200 women workers of the Violet Apparel factory in Cambodia, who are demanding Nike pay the US$1.4 million in owed wages, benefits and damages.

After the Violet Apparel factory – which produced for Nike – abruptly closed down in 2020, these women lost their jobs overnight. They were relying on wages and benefits to feed their families, pay rent, and pay for medical care, but the full payments never came.

They've been waiting for nearly 2 years. Nike made over US$19 billion in profit last year, while these women who made their clothes are wearing the cost of the pandemic.

You can help those comrades (they are women, Act!onAid folks, but above all they are workers!). Give Nike a piece of your mind.

Worker’s Mail: Ukraine.

 

(source)

Kate Lee, Executive Officer (Union Aid Abroad-APHEDA), writes that

In light of the terrible consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with widespread destruction ongoing and already more than one million refugees having had to leave Ukraine, the International Trade Union Confederation and European Trade Union Confederation have called a global “Solidarity with Ukraine” day of action on Tuesday, 15th March.

Australian unions are supporting actions in Canberra and Sydney. Please join us at these events, and share these details with your networks.

• Canberra - Ukraine embassy, 11am. (Level 12, St George Centre, 60 Marcus Clarke St, Canberra.)
• Sydney - Ukraine consulate, 9.30am. (27-29 Church St, Lidcombe.)

Worker’s Mail: Call to Workers.

Left: A; Centre: B; Right: C.

Seen from Australia, the world seems to be entering a time of permanent crisis. Drought, bushfires, floods, cyclones, heat waves, pandemics, wars.

Times like these require solidarity, decency, generosity, honesty and courage: the same things our “leaders” demonstrate time and again they lack (think of COP26). It’s up to us, the little people – yes, us, the workers – to demonstrate those qualities. They call us heroes as an insincere exercise in PR. But they unknowingly are right: we are heroes.

The Big Sydney Trains Meltdown: Twenty Four Little Hours Later.

(source)

Although in reduced timetables, this Tuesday Sydney trains are running again. So far, no underground station collapsed, no train caught fire or exploded or derailed. Nobody has died, gotten injured or locked inside trains for hours on end. Indeed, nobody got locked inside trains. Period, full stop.

Nothing happened. The network is working safely, if with delays.

Who’s to Blame for the Sydney Rail Meltdown?

 

These workers turned up to work, but were
told they could not by management. They
are not on strike #LiarFromTheShire (source)

This morning Sydneysiders found they could not take their trains. Caught by surprise, commuters feel frustrated: neither early-starters could go to work nor kids could go to school, night-shift workers couldn’t return home. Those taking a cab or an Uber were left out-of-pocket.

So, who’s to blame?  –  is what everyone’s asking.

Scott Morrison as Manager of the Economy.

(source)

The election campaign is on. Scotty from Marketing went to the National Press Club to spruik his credentials as economic manager.

In a long, long speech – so long, in fact, that Deputy PM Barnaby Joyce seemed to struggle to stay awake – Scotty uttered more than 5 thousand words, not counting his answers to the journos present for the Q&A session following the speech.

In well over the half an hour allocated to the speech, he spoke about a lot of things, among them “jobs, jobs, and more jobs”.

Has Scott Morrison Lost his Mind?

(source)

Truly, I am at a loss for words. Have a good look at the composite above. You see the little boy playing with a toy forklift? Charming, isn’t it?

Would you believe me if I told you that that’s how Scotty from Marketing thought he could solve the supply chain problems crippling the Australian economy?

Nah, you say. I’m exaggerating. I’m going bananas, right?

ACTU Statement on RATs and Masks.

 

[A]

Comrade Sally McManus, ACTU Secretary, sent us an email today. It’s at the bottom of this post. I fully support it. Before reading it, let me give you my own views on the matter.

Faced with a COVID outbreak of his own creation, Scott Morrison once again wants essential workers to risk their health so that society does not grind to a halt. He is right on something: we (not himself, not business people, not CEOs, not shareholders, not professors of philosophy or history or economics) are essential. We, with all our faults and weaknesses, but also with all our strength.

(If you are interested: a list of those included in that essential We.)

Why I am No Longer Your “Ally”.

There are good reasons why I should not write this post. 

Frankly, I don’t like writing about myself: I’m a boring, unremarkable old bloke. Moreover, even if for some unfathomable reason readers had any curiosity about me: it makes no sense for anonymous bloggers to give personal details.

As importantly, I’m sure this post will not endear me with some readers or gain me any new friends among modern Leftists. In fact, it’s likely to positively incense many and it will certainly not sit well with the liberal/Leftish.

And yet, here we are.

So, as Yanks say, here goes nothing.

The COALition’s Latest Stuff-Up.

(source)

It may be less virulent, but Omicron seems poised to deliver a KO punch to the Australian health service. People are queuing for hours to get the PCR tests; it takes up to five and six days to receive the bloody result and when it comes it’s often mistaken.

Pathology services and hospitals, facing a surge in COVID cases, are running understaffed. This is no doubt a surprise to NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet and Scotty from Marketing, but it turns out that lab technicians, data entry operators, contact tracers, nurses, and doctors also get sick and yet are forced to deal with an avalanche of COVID. That’s when mistakes are made.

Workers’ Mail.

Sam, from the Megaphone Team (Victoria Trades Hall Council), writes that

(source)

GPI just acquired “AR Packaging in the EU for over $1.4 billion”, Sam adds. But now they claim they cannot afford to increase their workers’ wages, forcing their workers to strike. This is particular cruel as Christmas approaches.

Workers of the World …

Boring intellectuals may recite their inane “ideas make reality” mantra until they are blue in the face. For a while it may – indeed probably will – fool some, but it won’t change much in the long run. It’s reality that drives action, which leads in turn to ideas.

(source)

And so, while a few Aussie hens are still fooled into making common cause with the foxes, workers are re-learning the painful lessons their elders knew well: there is no way around, they need to act. So organise yourselves, and, as the chant says, stand up and fight back.

Bits and Pieces: The Joke’s on Us All.

(source)

I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that with repetition, even the best joke loses its ability to make us laugh. It becomes unfunny.

Or maybe it’s just me. I’m growing older and grumpier.

Either way, for me, jokes like that, clever as they might be, no longer make me smile, let alone laugh.

The unchanging truth such jokes reflect has gone well past the point of being funny.

Bits and Pieces: Images. (Updated)

Lately, the media has shown images of many people posing as workers.

(source)

Anyone, however, can wear a hi-viz vest and a hard hat for a photo opportunity. That doesn’t make of them a worker, much less a working class hero.

#TheYouthAreRising: October 15th.

(source)

Our only hope to avoid that, is to support this:

(source)